Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Tarantula Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson June 13, 2019

Hollywood cinema in the 1950s churned out a panoply of radioactive monster movies that tapped into Americans' anxieties over the Red Scare and fear of the hydrogen and A-bomb. It was commonplace for theaters to show killer bug and insect films such as Highly Dangerous (1950), Them! (1954), The Black Scorpion (1957), The Deadly Mantis (1957), The Fly (1958), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), and The Wasp Woman (1959). Sandwiched in between these is Universal-International's production of Tarantula (1955), which was written by Robert M. Fresco (The Monolith Monsters) and Martin Berkeley (Revenge of the Creature), with genre stalwart Jack Arnold (Monster on the Campus) handling the direction.

Tarantula begins eerily in a blustery Arizona desert where a drifter—dressed in pajamas and sporting a Wolfman-like face—collapses, rises, and falls to the ground again. The local sheriff's office calls Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar), a country doctor, to inspect the deceased and disfigured man. At the autopsy Hastings meets Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll), who claims he knew the man for several years and worked in the same lab together with him. Deemer has been working on a potent nutrient drug that can transform animals 2-3 times their normal size and also causes unknown physical effects on humans. The professor/scientist has been testing his serum on a guinea pig, mouse, and tarantula, with burgeoning results in size on each. One day Deemer is attacked by a perpetrator similar in appearance to the man in the desert, who breaks the tarantula out of his glass cage. The arachnid grows exponentially and the Yuma Desert has one big problem. Deemer survives the attack in his lab but is never the same. Fresco and Berkeley add both a lab assistant for Deemer and a love interest for Hastings with Stephanie Clayton (Mara Corday), a curvaceous brunette beauty. The filmmakers really begin to ratchet up the thrills when the giant tarantula attacks a farmer's livestock and cattle.

Don't let it out!

Universal Pictures marketed Tarantula as the king of creature features. One publicity article placed in newspapers read: "King Kong must finally take a back seat as the most colossal figure ever to appear in the town where the word 'colossal' was invented. The giant spider in Universal-International’s thriller in science-fiction Tarantula is over sixty feet tall and fifty feet wide." An unsigned article for the The Indiana Gazette stated: "It is true that this particular spider is the greatest monster ever seen on the screen." The film wowed and frightened critics and audiences alike. Screen Scout, a female reviewer for the San Francisco Examiner, reflected after her viewing: "It’s a very unnerving horror film and when I left, a small boy holding the door for me said 'You’re scared aren’t you lady?'" A review in the Rutland (VT) Daily Herald promised: "This one should scare the day­lights out of many a viewer."

Tarantula certainly stands well on its own terms (and tentacles) but when placed alongside a genre benchmark like Them!, it isn't as effective or compelling. Although Tarantula similarly prolongs the appearance of its large titular spider, the screenplay for Gordon Douglas's 1954 classic has superior storytelling, pacing, and prolonged suspense. Dealing with one huge tarantula is more than enough for a small population in an expansive desert but Them! further complicates things for its protagonists by multiplying the giant ants! Both films are worth seeing but Them! is the catalyst for which all other films of its ilk are judged.

Tarantula Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tarantula makes its North American debut on Blu-ray with this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25 courtesy of Shout! Factory. This is the film's second release on HD worldwide, which comes five years after German-based Koch Media presented the film with two different aspect ratios: the broadcast version of 1.33:1 and the 16x9 friendly 1.77:1. Shout! presents Tarantula in its original exhibited ratio of 1.85:1. The archival print has received a new 2K scan using the original film elements and looks quite good on Blu-ray. The grain structure is very pleasing to my eyes. Greyscale and contrast are both solid. The one drawback is that more age-related artifacts crop up as the film moves along. There seems to have been a stock shot of a rabbit running (Screenshot #19) where you can spot a lot of print damage. Same goes for the tramlines in #20. Shout! has encoded the main feature at an average video bitrate of 35000 kbps.

The 81-minute feature is broken up into twelve scene selections.

Tarantula Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! supplies the original monaural as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (1583 kbps, 24-bit). The master is in outstanding condition and exhibits few if any traces of pops, crackles, or audible hiss. Dialogue is communicated clearly and cogently on this lossless presentation. One review from 1955 described the tarantula as emitting a "strange whirring sound" and this is in full force here.

According to movie music expert David Schecter on the commentary track, the "score" for Tarantula had ninety music cues: fifty-two by Herman Stein (23.5 minutes of new music) and thirty-eight by Henry Mancini (but who only contributed about 38 seconds of new music). So a great majority of music was recycled from Universal's library by primarily these two composers. Older material was derived from twenty different Universal pictures. New music was added later to spice up the action.

Because Tarantula is in black and white, Shout! has designed the optional English SDH in yellow.

Tarantula Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Film Historians Tom Weaver, Dr. Robert J. Kiss, and David Schecter - As he does on other tracks for vintage titles released by Kino Lorber, Tom Weaver both narrates and moderates this commentary. He excerpts a fine audio interview with Matinee director Joe Dante, who recalls his experience of first seeing Tarantula. Actors recite quotes that cast members originally made about working on the film. Dr. Robert J. Kiss chimes in to deliver an excellent reception history of Tarantula. All commentators speak in English and their remarks aren't subtitled.

• Theatrical Trailer (1:52, 1080i) - an unrestored full-frame trailer of Tarantula that contains some spoilers so don't watch until you've seen the film.

• Still Gallery (4:14, 1080p) - a slide show consisting of forty-five images pulled from Universal's marketing campaign for the film. These include publicity shots, pictures of the tarantulas, and onset photographs. Also on full display are the results of Bud Westmore's makeup work on two of the actors.

• Poster and Lobby Card Gallery (4:55, 1080p) - another slide show comprising an array of posters and lobby cards from Unversal's archival library. Impressively, there's also sketches and and storyboards of different posters and display cards. It provides the viewer with an inkling of the ad department's design concepts. The first twenty-six slides are in full color. There are sixty-four distinct images.

Tarantula Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tarantula is a very good entry in the killer bug and insect film subgenre of the 1950s. Though not on the same level as Them!, it finds director Jack Arnold near the top of his game. Bud Westmore's makeup effects remain superb and Wah Chang's tarantula puppet continues to impress after sixty-four years. Shout! Factory has given the film a respectable restoration but I think more work could have been done to remove the remaining damage marks. The uncompressed monaural track sounds clear. Tom Weaver helms another largely informative compilation commentary track. Shout! has done a great archival service by retrieving many rare photographs and memorabilia, which look marvelous in the two still galleries. A SOLID RECOMMENDATION.